Maserati’s Bold Electrification Plan:

Back in June, FCA presented a new 5-year plan. Technologically, the most ambitious part of their plan is related to the Maserati brand. They seem to be heavily betting on technologies that have not even made their way to the market yet.

Don’t forget that in the past, late Sergio Marchionne said that all Maserati cars in the future will have only electrified powertrains and that the last vehicle without electrified powertrains would be the Levante. With recent managerial changes, FCA Chief Technical Officer Harald Wester took the helm of Maserati, which is a logical move from the new FCA CEO, Mike Manley. Mister Wester himself gave a lot of answers on future FCA electrification plans during an Investor’s Day Q&A session.

This summer Maserati was in search of a lot of engineers for their electrification plans.
These plans included belt driven mild hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and battery electric vehicle experts.

Let’s clear this up: electrification does not mean that all Maserati vehicles will be at least hybrids and plug-in hybrids. Most of the line-up will actually feature a 48-volt mild hybrid system. That in itself is a huge improvement from Maserati’s current powertrain lineup, which does not include any electrification.

Another goal is the elimination of diesels from the Maserati lineup, which could be painful for the European market. Fortunately, diesel engines will be replaced by the aforementioned 48-volt mild hybrid setup.

Maserati will also debut a performance-oriented plug-in hybrid which we believe is related to a new Ferrari hybrid system. According to the plan, Maserati will keep using Ferrari’s powertrain solutions, even for electrification.

Maserati could adopt a new Ferrari V6 for some models engine which we believe it’s a V6 120° design. Maserati is already using a Ferrari-designed and sourced V8 which will receive electrification in the future.

Crucial for Maserati is 800-volt fully electric technology. This would be a performance-oriented technology. Currently, there are automakers offering this technology in a production car. Maserati is in a race with Aston Martin and Porsche to get the 800-volt technology to the market first.

With a Combined Charging System Type 2 (CCS2) charger, it could offer up to 2-times faster charging compared to traditional 400-volt technologies with CCS2. To put this into perspective, CCS2 technology can offer 3-times faster charging compared to a Tesla Supercharger with identical battery capacity.

Time will tell if Maserati can pull off this ambitious plan, but one thing is certain: FCA is planning to release an onslaught of electrified powertrains and Maserati is at the forefront of this technological revolution.